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Chapter Fourteen

" W ipe the cardamom honey around inside of the glass, okay, now the espresso, good, and now the foam," I say, talking Dav through assembling a latte for some influencer-type waiting impatiently at the end of the service counter.

Hadi is needed in the kitchen to make more scones, so Dav's joined me in manning the machines.

"There you are," he says to the influencer, and all her irritation vanishes when he turns on his charm. She winks. My irritation spikes. As soon as the latte is out of his hands, I tug on his belt loop to get his attention, and peck a quick kiss off his lips.

Dav's Customer Service Charm melts into something besotted. I send a catty glance at the influencer, because I'm a possessive bitch, okay?

But she just says "cute", and takes the last empty club chair by the front window to give her latte a glamour shoot. It's gonna be cold before she takes a sip, but that's not my problem.

Every new social media post is free advertising for us.

Predictably, my back pocket vibrates about five minutes later, when I catch her actually drinking her latte out of the corner of my eye.

I've got the Beanevolence accounts on my device today, because Hadi couldn’t keep up.

Prepping to add the influencer’s post to our stories with one hand while I pull espresso with the other, I nearly drop my phone into the compost bin when I actually look at the thing.

The first photo of the series isn't of the coffee, or even the café itself.

It's me and Dav.

Kissing.

I send her another glare and she winks again.

Fuck if it isn't a good pic, though.

It's a dramatic angle, the lower edge of the photo framed with the beaten-copper counter.

Dav's hair has been color-corrected to match it, both of them gleaming.

The kiss itself is light, like that optical illusion of the silhouettes nose-to-nose so it looks like a chalice in the negative space between them.

Except there's no chalice, just the steam rising from the espresso machine like fairy tale fog.

Dav's profile is classic: the carved-out lips, the beaky British nose, the groomed eyebrows, the classic swoop of hair.

I look like an exhausted trash goblin: weak chin covered in scruff, unravelling yarn ball-esque hair, the knobby nose I inherited from my nan, the perpetual bags under my eyes that moved in at the start of my first-year exams and never packed off.

But I look happy.

I am happy.

Dav looks happy, too.

I hope he is.

I waffle for a second—my kisses don't need to be all over Beanevolence’s social media feeds—and then I think, What's wrong with putting a little happiness out in the world ?

, and hit 'repost'. It's not like there isn't a rainbow flag sticker right above the door handle.

If showing two men kissing on our feed loses us some customers?

Well, we don't want homophobes in our café in the first place, anyway, thanks very much.

Then I get back to the rush of making complicated coffees and 'accidentally' bumping into Dav whenever I get the opportunity.

Okay, so it turns out she was not just an influencer.

She was a reporter from a lifestyle website famous for listicles.

A day later, suddenly Eight Things We Are Dying Over At This Cute St. Kitts Café is out there, and hundreds of thousands of people have been emailed a copy of the picture of me kissing Dav in their newsletter.

Shit.

It's Gemma who alerts me to it with some pop-eyed emojis and a link.

I'm standing in the kitchen, having popped back for a glass of water and a quick check of my phone. Dav’s abandoned the cauldron, resting his chin on my shoulder, arms around my hips, when I make a choked squeaking noise.

"What is it?" he rumbles into my ear and yes please, that's nice.

"The kiss heard round the world. Fuck. Sorry, babe."

Dav turns his attention away from where he was snuffling behind my ear (tickles!).The website lists the attractions of Beanevolence in the following order, with high-contrast, luscious photographs designed to make your mouth water.

1. The Coffee

This is a close up of our canisters behind the counter, the sunlight glinting off the glass.

2. The Bean Roaster

Somehow the influencer got a candid shot of Dav that I am totally saving to my spank bank.

He's standing in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the jamb, head cocked as he laughs.

Dav's started wearing an apron over his nice clothes (he accidentally scorched his pants the other day) and it pulls just so across his chest and hips.

3. The Coffee

Our drip pots, elegantly framed by the clean sleek black of the machines.

4. The Sustainable, Local, Organic Model and Female Ownership

Hadi, though she clearly posed for this one because she's giving the viewer a cheeky grin. Her hijab is a bright blue that contrasts gorgeously with the black and burnt orange decor of the café itself. Hadi looks cool and confident—a queen in charge of her empire.

5. The Coffee

This shot is of my hands, making the honey cardamom latte. I'm in the middle of pouring the milk foam in the little honeycomb pattern that took me months of practice to get right. Shit, I need to do something about my bitten-up nails.

6. The Cute Barista

Oh lord, it's me. I suppose my ears don't look too big in this picture. And she caught my face at an angle where it actually gives me a jaw. Moving on.

7. The Coffee

I don't remember making her companion's drink, but this shot is obviously of somebody's drip-coffee from above, on one of our café tables.

8. The Romance!

And there's the kiss. Oh god, Mum's gonna print this out and put it on her fridge.

It's a flattering, well-shot feature, for all that my consent wasn’t asked for the pictures. Irksome.

"That looks good." Hadi appears over my other shoulder, and tucks in close to sandwich me between her and Dav.

On one hand—aww, my two favorite people. On the other—invasion of personal space much? Just to cement the violation, she touches my screen to zoom in on the kiss.

"Could you not?" I say.

"It's cute."

"It's everywhere . Bee-are-bee, gonna go throw myself off the back deck."

"Do a flip," Hadi says, deadpan.

"Please don't, actually," Dav says, strained. He sounds like he's talking through a wired jaw, but it's not my potential nosedive that has him spooked. "How many people have seen this?"

"I dunno," I confess. "There's over four hundred comments on it already."

"Shit." Hadi whips her head around to stare at the wall that separates us from the front, as if she can hear the thunderous footfalls of the approaching mob of thirsty coffee nerds. "More beans!"

"Yes, ma'am," Dav says without any trace of irony, offers her a perfectly crisp salute, and gets cracking.

By nightfall, three other major social media feeds have featured the article, and Hadi has fielded half a dozen calls from industry publications.

The St. Catharines Standard and the Brock University Alumni Association have sent around reporters and photographers.

Mauli and Dikembe stopped by to congratulate us and wheedle freebies, and Mum and Auntie Pattie have both sent me embarrassing GenX memes masquerading as congratulations.

We stay open late to manage the evening interest. Hadi heads home at nine, shooing Min-soo out in front of her and locking the door when she goes.

I've agreed to stay a few more hours to prep for the morning, and suddenly Dav and I are alone in the kitchen.

He's working on the last of the beans, and I'm trudging through dishes and dough prep.

I'm desperate to open the back door for some cooler air, but Dav is paranoid, as if other dragons are hanging around the bottom of the slope behind the street with long lenses, just waiting for him to fuck up.

Who knows, maybe they are.

"I'm not keen on this article," he says while we lock up, just before midnight.

Christ , I am not looking forward to being in for six, but Min-Soo's got morning summer classes, and Hadi's reluctant to hire someone to share my shift with in case this burst in popularity is a blip.

Dav looks wiped, and I feel the same. We had plans for take out and hangs tonight.

Instead we're both slumping back to my place, feet aching, backs sore, limp from the heat of the kitchen.

I'd been hoping I could convince him to sleep over, but I think the only kind of sleeping that might actually happen is sleeping .

"Asking permission would have been nice," I agree, leaning into Dav as we wait for the traffic lights to change. "Consent is sexy."

"Indeed." He slips an arm over my shoulders. His fingers ghost over the puncture wounds—now dime-sized red dots, slowly shading to white. "Though I did like the pictures themselves. But that's not what I mean."

"Then what?"

"I worry what might be said."

I look up at him. The streetlight lines all his sweet edges in amber. "You think you'll get in trouble?"

"I think I am a dragon who has been forbidden from service, photographed in a café serving humans."

"But not really, " I push.

"I am seen to be employed, Colin." He rolls his bottom lip in and bites it once, nervous, then seems to catch himself at it and lets it go. "That may be enough."

Rage frazzles up in me so fast, I actually gasp. I'd forgotten I was still so goddamn angry that Dav's own family says he's supposed to be small and disposable. Dav's one of the kindest, most emotionally aware, and thoughtful people on the planet. It's cruel .

"They're that serious about you just being a soldier and sitting around waiting for orders to go out and, I don't know, fucking die in some pointless bloody trench?"

"Peace, darling," Dav says softly, and leans down to gift me with a gentling kiss. It's chaste, and peters off into little pecks at the corner of my lips. We end up missing the light entirely, standing in the soft, breathless summer night.

"Don't think calling me pet names is gonna make me any less pissed," I tell him when we finally separate, a whole cycle of red lights later, and cross.

I reach out and hook my pinkie finger around his.

It's fucking twee, but it's kind of our thing now.

In his other hand he carries a tote, which he's been keeping secret from me all day.

As we walk, Dav's face scrunches. His shoulders ride up, and his grip gets uncomfortably tight.

A flush of red climbs up his neck from the collar of his dress shirt—unbuttoned three holes, the unrepentant hussy—and the next time we pass under a streetlamp, I can see it's not a blush, but the first prick of red scales.

"Whoa, okay," I say, and tug us to a stop. "What's going on?"

"I… I just…" he lets go of me and presses his hand against his chest. "I can't stop thinking…

they're going to be so angry , especially after—" he cuts himself off with a hard gasp, and I don't have time to ask after what as I press my own hand over his, lacing our fingers together.

His teeth are suddenly sharper. "I should never have, I should never —"

"Okay, stop, stop," I shush him. "Come on now, big breath in, follow me.

Good, in, two three… out two three. Hey.

I'm here. Look at me, hey." I thread my hands through his hair, press my palms against his ears—lengthening into points—blocking out the rest of the world.

He drags his eyes up, slowly, stopping to stare at pieces of me, to latch onto the buttons of my Henley, the notch of my collarbone, my bottom lip, before he meets my gaze.

"Another breath, in, in, in, out, out, out, out. Hey, you're good."

The red fades. Under my fingers, the shells of his ears shrink and smooth. The fangs recede. His pupils round out a little. Slowly, carefully, I rock up on the tips of my toes and kiss him. This is a comfort kiss, slow drags and little soothing noises. Hello, I'm here with you. I'm here.

"It's already done," I say gently. "Whatever they think, whatever happens now, it's already done."

"I know."

"And you enjoy it, making humans happy?"

"Yes," he says fiercely. "Very much."

"Then we'll deal with what comes next when it comes."

"We?"

"It was my idea, wasn't it?" I ask, rubbing my other hand through my hair. Ugh, sweaty. Maybe I can convince Dav to have a shower with me. No, knowing my luck, I'd slip and crack my head open. "If you end up in the shit, I'll stand in it right there next to you."

Dav huffs a scrunch-nosed laugh. "Charming image."